Dementia

saky said:

Does type 2 diabetes lead to vascular dementia or is it due to plaque in the blood vessels of the brain?My mother has developed dementia after end stage renal failure....She is on dialysis now.

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So sorry to hear about your mum.

My mum had dementia, so I take a lot more notice of it, when I see posts or reports on it

A few suggest dementia 'could' be a type of diabetes

Not sure myself, but I do think, if T2D can cause so much damage to nerve ending in our hands, feet & goodness knows where else, what on earth could it be doing to our brains ?

Diabetes, can damage our organs, though I have no idea if this was the case for your mum.

And while I would guess it IS highly likely mum has had a full blood work up done.

A recent post & link to a B12 query, rather horrified me that doctors misdiagnose quite a few illnesses leading to incorrect treatment with drugs etc that aren't tackling the root cause.

While maybe of little use to mum, I'd love you & others to be made aware that what may seem clearly XY or Z.... COULD be a B12 deficiency presenting itself.

Rather horrifying to think rather than do a simple test people are being treated for the wrong illness.

One thing I found out regarding mum, is while most days she would have been 'ill' , somedays she was particularly agitated.

Those days were caused by water infections, not spotted & treated quickly enough at first until we learned to read the signs better & ask for her to be checked over.

And once treated, they resolved themselves quite quickly.
Never cured, but back to her more 'normal' levels of confusion etc

I didn't know about B12 back then, and maybe it wouldn't have helped but I wish to God I had done and eliminated that doubt in the early days of her decline .

Best wishes &
God bless.

saky said:

While my mother's kidneys were failing, she showed very limited signs and symtoms of dementia....
One day, she became unconscious. she became unconscious with her eyes open and after a few minutes became normal and wake up. We took her to hospital. They did blood work and said pancreatitis, with elevated amylase and lipase. She was on trajenta(ddp4 inhibitors).I read ddp4 causes pancreatitis.
Finally, the doctors suggested dialysis and transplant.
She was taking about something that had happened in the past while in hospital.
Slowly, her dementia worsened even after being on dialysis.
I am now managing her sugars with diet only. I give her moderate carbs and her sugars are in range for the first time in her life. We didn't know about low carbs.
Am low carbing now and the same has worked for my mother also...
Medicines and insulin failed to keep her sugars in check.

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Hard to know what to give, so I gave a hug for the obvious distress all round this has caused

But also inclined to give a pat on the back and winner, because of how you've rolled with those punches and come back ready to fight .... BRAVO .

Sad we have to take on so much & dissect what should be clear & correct advice from the medical world with a pinch of salt sometimes

I was told that memories are like a basket of eggs, for dementia suffers, they don't realise it, but the top most levels of the eggs (memories) are being removed.

Hence the confusion and talk when the world doesn't match their current & personal life experience .

For my mum, the home she was in age 80, was a factory, the nurses were the girls she worked with, her mum & dad were still alive as was all her siblings.
(I took that as a small blessing that her world was filled with the people she loved )

Sadly me & dad hadn't arrived in her world as yet, so how could she know who we were ?


I mentioned this to a lady (nurse) at my rehab gym class

She told me of trials where patients were surrounded by items & music of that era they now live in, that helped some patients have more coherent thoughts & clearer speech .(mum mostly mumbled nonsense or just hummed a tune, except for rare moments of clarity )

Might be worth investigating..mmhh

Best wishes moving forward for you both